How Do We Retain Top Talent? (Hint: It’s Not Just About Pay)
We Know Retaining Top Talent Is About More Than Pay and Benefits
We’ve all heard it before: "If you want to keep great employees, pay them well and offer great benefits."
But the latest research from the CEO Academy—a division of SHRM—suggests that today’s workforce wants something more nuanced. The data reveals a surprising yet powerful opportunity many organizations are missing.
Strategic Scheduling: A Hidden Driver of Retention
According to the CEO Academy, some of the most effective strategies for retaining top talent aren’t found in your benefits package—they're in your scheduling practices:
Flexible Schedules are rated very or extremely effective by 60% of organizations.
Consistent Hours follow closely at 58%.
Employee Input on Scheduling lands at 57%.
That means these simple but strategic adjustments to when work happens often outperform traditional perks like health insurance or PTO—which were rated highly by only 49% of respondents.
Yet Here’s the Missed Opportunity: Less than 55% of organizations currently leverage any of these proven scheduling tactics.
Imagine what could happen if your company did.
Retention, Stability, and Cost Reduction Leaders who embrace strategic scheduling unlock three major benefits:
Improved retention of high-performing employees.
Reduced turnover costs, which continue to rise.
Long-term workforce stability that sets your culture apart.
Don’t Ignore Compensation Of course, competitive compensation still matters. In fact, it's right at the top of the list. When’s the last time your organization conducted a compensation study?
Staying competitive in today’s labor market means knowing—not guessing—that your pay structure reflects both market data and employee expectations.
Your Takeaway: Don’t just rethink what you pay your people—rethink how you support their time.
Because retaining top talent in 2025 and beyond isn’t just about perks. It’s about priorities.
Need Help Auditing Your Compensation or Scheduling Strategy? Salt & Light Advisors offers HR project-based solutions and fractional partnerships tailored to help you lead with clarity and confidence.
If you're still guessing whether your pay and scheduling practices are competitive enough to keep your best people, take the free HR Audit and see where your retention systems stand: saltandlightadvisors.com/hraudit
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